


Distance

by AceV



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-21 05:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15550410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceV/pseuds/AceV
Summary: Harrison is only worried about going to college, making it to work on time, and getting to bed at a decent hour. That is, until the dinosaur incident. Suddenly he has new powers and new responsibilities. And he thought Physics was hard...





	1. The Dinosaur Incident

The first time Harrison traveled backward in time, he thought he was dreaming. After all, when he came to, he was still in his twin sized bed within his cramped 10 x 10 feet room. He opened his eyes and immediately winced in pain because the sunlight was boring directly into his pupils. He groaned and sat up, annoyed by his responsibility to wake up and go to his morning physics seminar for a class that he still had no clue how to do. He honestly should have switched out months ago, but he scraped by enough to pass and was simply too lazy to be bothered to try out something else. 

His room really was too small, especially for his six-foot two-inch frame, but it was what he could afford, so he dealt with it. Harrison mustered the energy to swing his feet over the edge of the bed and eventually stand, being mindful to avoid hitting the fan, yet again and shuffled over to the window. He glanced out at the obnoxiously busy George’s St, only to notice there was no obnoxious business happening. The street was completely empty. Correction: there was no street. 

Harrison slowly closed his grey eyes, rubbed them, and proceeded to carefully peer out of the window once more. Yep. Still no street. Instead of the hustle and bustle of cars and motorcycles, he saw a field of grass that had to be at least twelve feet tall and stretched out into the distance endlessly. He pulled the blinds completely up so he could take it all in. Not panicking, just interested in this unexpected development. There were no other buildings in sight; just the grass. At this point, he wondered if Jeremy had in fact given him the “special brownies” instead of the regular ones last night, but quickly dismissed the idea. His best friend knew better, and besides, he didn’t feel any of the usual symptoms associated with that kind of a high. But, the street still wasn’t there. And that was not normal. And that was a problem. 

Harrison thought to himself for a moment and decided to get dressed and get along with his day. At this point he figured he was in a mild sort of lucid dream in which all of the cars of the world had disappeared and nature had reclaimed her dominion from the humans, only sparing his crappy apartment building. Worse things could happen, he supposed and made his way to the most beautiful invention of the human race: the shower. He was honestly surprised it was running, seeing as the building’s pipes were probably destroyed by the plants. But the water ran hot, and not being one to question fortune, he enjoyed a shower. 

After a luxurious forty-five minute cleaning, he took his time toweling dry and got dressed. He picked up his only casual shirt, a plain black tee, with loose blue jeans and perhaps the oldest and most rundown pair of all-stars the world has ever seen, before grabbing his keys and heading for his car. Surely, he was going to wake up soon, he thought to himself, but he was getting more agitated as the minutes slipped by, and he wasn’t freed from this strange dream. Harrison slowly made his way down the steps and noticed the silence all around him. Again, this was highly unusual, as the neighbours always had parties going on as if life without booze and club techno would be their demise. But there was only silence. 

Harrison became more unsettled when he made his way to the front door of the building. He opened it and carefully glanced around. Almost instantly, a warm, humid breeze made its way inside, assaulting his face with the familiar air of Missouri. The air was the same; it just didn’t look like the Missouri he knew.  
Harrison stepped outside, and looked around him, although there wasn’t much to see. Besides the field, the most interesting thing outside was himself, and that wasn’t saying much. He pinched his arm and winced in pain. That definitely hurt, but he was definitely still there. 

It was then the panic began to set in. 

What was he doing here? Why was he by himself? Where did the people, let alone infrastructure, all disappear to? His heart began to beat faster and faster until he recognized the signs of the anxiety attack that was rapidly overtaking him. No, he could not blackout right now, not here. He sat on the ground and took in several desperate, but measured breaths, and wondered what he should do next. After a few moments, he jumped to his feet, no easy feat for a guy who’s six feet, and thought of his cell phone.  
He ran inside and grabbed his LG from the bed. “I should call Jeremy,” he mumbled to himself and proceeded to dial his number. Miraculously enough, it went through. Harrison began to wonder how that was even possible but decided that the only thing he had to wonder about at the moment was where the rest of human civilization went. On the fourth ring, Jeremy picked up. 

“Dude! Where are you? Melissa is pissed that you didn’t come into work; literally threw a dish at the wall. I think she’s finally going to do it, man. She is going to kill you. You need to-”  
Harrison cut him off right there. 

“So you’re all right? Nothing weird is happening? There are other people around and not eternal fields of grass surrounding your building?”

“I think you understand how crazy you sound, but just in case, you sound like an absolute lunatic at the moment. Are you surrounded by fields of grass, Harrison? And did you get the wrong package of brownies? I clearly labeled them, so you can’t pin it on me…” 

Harrison was both relieved and annoyed at the same time. He sighed and looked outside again before sitting down on his bed. “Yes, Jeremy.”

“High?”

“The field, Jeremy! I am in a field. I have no idea where I am or what’s going on, but I am in the middle of some field of someplace, and I cannot explain to you how freaked out I am. I am literally the only person here, and there are no streets and the water still works, but I don’t know how long that is going to last and-” His eyes locked on the window. There seemed to be something moving through the grass- no, not something, somethings. “Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh god…” He counted three different tracks being formed, but whatever they were kept hidden in the grass. “I’m gonna die. I can’t believe I’m gonna die…” 

“Hey! Harrison! Harris! Listen to me man, what is going on?”

“These things are coming from the grass. I can’t see them yet, but they’re getting close! Why can’t I wake up…” 

“Board up your room, dude! Uh, grab a weapon or something. Don’t just let them kill you!” Jeremy’s panicked shrieks were less than comforting to Harrison, but they spurred him into action. The creatures were nearing the edge of the field, and he had to do something. He put the phone on speaker, dropped it on the bed, and ran to his door. The only defense it had was a basic lock with a chain, so he pulled the small bookshelf in front for good measure. His eyes wildly scanned the room to find any sort of weapon and landed on a sword he bought on Amazon a few years ago. It was awesome: about two feet in length with a wicked broad curved point and “Harbinger” engraved on the hilt. The Falchion sword was purely decorative. Until now, he supposed. Harrison picked it up and noticed how violently his hands shook. He gripped it tighter and glanced at the window just as the creatures revealed themselves. 

Dinosaurs.

Legit dinosaurs. 

Freakin’ huge dinosaurs. 

It was a wonder the grass concealed these creatures at all, as they were gigantic. They stood at about ten feet in height and easily weighed more than a ton. Their long faces had hard bone covering where a nose would be and large, primal eyes. They walked with a slow but powerful gait that sent ripples throughout their meaty legs and thick scaly tails. A short but full line of feathers traced a path from the back of their heads all the way down to the tips of their tails. They were headed directly for the apartment building.  
It was too much for Harrison. The beads of sweat that rolled down his back soaked his entire shirt through. The tremors in his hands traveled up his arms and went to his heart causing his heart to beat with a wild ferocity Harrison was sure would kill him. His vision began to cut out along with his hearing. His head began sending excruciating waves throughout his body and lights danced in his eyes. He faintly heard Jeremy frantically calling his name, but his voice sounded so far away… Harrison was able to suck in one last desperate breath before he completely blacked out and fell to the floor. 

In the milliseconds before impact, everything froze. The grass outside stood suspended in an eternal breeze, the dinosaurs stooped in an endless instance of sniffing the wall of the apartment building, and Harrison never hit the floor. The world began to warp and twist in on itself like a sheet of fabric being manipulated and contorted into stretched and crumpled versions of itself. An intense energy built, causing everything to shake violently, before what can only be described as a scream from the universe tore through the room and the world went dark.  
… 

Harrison awoke with the champion of all migraines and soaked with enough sweat to fill a kiddie pool. What was he doing on the floor? Why was he so hot? Why did he have his sword? Then it all came crashing back into his brain, and his heart lurched savagely in his chest. He managed to stand, by some miracle of God and went over to the window. There was George’s St., in all of its usual obstinate glory. The cars honked at one another, pedestrians crossed where there weren’t sidewalks, and the traffic moved along slowly. No fields of grass in sight. Harrison sat down on his bed and considered the events that transpired. As far as he knew, he was mentally stable and his family didn’t have a history of delusional behaviour. He knew what he saw was real. Unless it wasn’t? Frustrated and confused, he picked up his phone and began dialing Jeremy’s number, but was interrupted with a knock at the door before he could make the call. Harrison made his way to his feet and hobbled over to the door. He opened it to find a total stranger. A five-foot ten-inch man with blonde hair in a ponytail and blue eyes, wearing jeans, a gray T, and the angriest look any human could possibly gift to another. 

“You want to explain yourself, pal?” 

“What?” Harrison didn’t know any blonde dudes, let alone exceptionally angry ones, and he certainly had no idea who this man was. If this day could get any weirder… 

“Ripping the most obvious gigantic hole in the fabric of space-time like it’s going out of style or something. I bet you didn’t even have a Virtue of Space with you when you decided to announce your presence to the universes that be, which was incredibly dramatic and idiotic, by the way. Probably why you left such a mess behind with that void. You want the federation to take us all away? You want to be marked and thrown into one of their camps? As if they aren’t watching us as it is…Well? Speak for yourself!”

Harrison stood there for a moment just staring at this strange man, slowly processing what he was saying before a grin spread across his face. “So, what you’re saying,” he replied, “is I am not, in fact, crazy? None of that was a dream? I don’t need to be put on medication?” The man stared back, a look of incredulous disbelief plastered on his face. 

“Are you saying you have never done this before? This is the first time this has ever happened?” The question was straightforward, right to the point. Harrison nodded in reply. “Holy… well then. You are definitely coming with me kid. You have got a lot to catch up on.”


	2. Level Zero

The first time Harrison traveled backward in time, he almost died because he was a complete idiot about it. To be fair, it wasn’t really his fault, but he was an idiot nonetheless. At least according to his newest acquaintance Cyrus, the exceptionally angry blondie who greeted him after the whole embarrassing ordeal. Honestly, Harrison thought Cyrus just didn’t have access to a thesaurus, because Cyrus never called him stupid, nitwit, moron, or imbecile. Just idiot. And speaking of…

“Hey, idiot, go grab that book on the third shelf with the green cover.” Harrison sighed inwardly. Another freaking book. He reluctantly stood up and drug his six foot two frame over to the mahogany bookshelf situated against the wall. More like hiding the wall. The case stood at an impressive fourteen feet in height and twenty feet in length, spanning the entirety of the wall.

Since Harrison’s episode two months ago, he had been living with Cyrus in his mansion. That’s right, that angry little demon of a teacher was apparently descended from an obstinately proud line of people known as the Vasyl-Valen family who decided to plop a multimillion dollar behemoth in Missouri of all places. Unsurprisingly, the name translated to ‘royal’ and ‘powerful.’ You know, subtle. Harrison was awfully impressed and disgusted by the grandeur of the home, wishing he could have grown up with this kind of luxury and despising Cyrus for having done so. The building had fifty rooms, twenty-five full bathrooms, three floors with a kitchen, sitting room, and dining room on each level, and a library. Absolutely ridiculous. Harrison glanced to the left of the bookcase and glanced at the matching mahogany stand, his eyes resting upon the antique porcelain vase that adorned it. _I bet it’s worth thousands…_

“I was planning on having the lesson this century, idiot.” Harrison was surprised his back wasn’t wet with the annoyance dripping from his words. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the hefty volume from the shelf before shuffling back to his seat across from Cyrus.

“About time.”

“You could’ve grabbed it yourself.”

“It’s your lesson, idiot. You can go grab a book since I am doing literally everything else.”

“What are we even doing, Cyrus?” Harrison huffed at him with exasperation and exhaustion. Ever since Cyrus had found him, it was non-stop with the lessons. First it was a history of time travel, then the components of time travel, then the necessary aspects of time travel, and so on for the past two months. This was all exciting, it really was, but Cyrus had him constantly focused on studies, relentless in his education. Harrison still had to get his other education, the normal college kind. He’d often come to the mansion after school to get in a lesson with Cyrus before heading off to work for a few hours and coming back for another one. It was a miracle he didn’t keel over from exhaustion.

“Learning, obviously.” Cyrus gave Harrison a disapproving scowl from over the green book he’d been scanning. “And sit up straight. You’ll end up with a hunched back by thirty at this rate.” Harrison obliged, if only to shut him up and move on to the lesson. “To answer your question, we are going to send an object back in time and then return it to the present.”

Harrison’s eyes widened with excitement. “Seriously?”

“No. I enjoy wasting time explaining plans that aren’t going to happen.” Harrison’s eyes narrowed with irritation, but Cyrus didn’t notice or didn’t care as he continued explaining. “Because you obviously aren’t ready to send any living organism to any time period, we are going to start with this ball,” and Cyrus produced a bright red ball from a satchel Harrison hadn’t noticed next to the couch. “At this point, I’m not worried about you being able to send it to any specific time period, just to some point in the past. So, I’ll just keep track of it to see where it lands, alright?”

Harrison looked Cyrus in his eyes. “Let’s do this.” Cyrus snorted and set the book down on the table and motioned for Harrison to put his hands out. Cyrus placed the red ball in Harrison’s hands and placed his own on top of the ball. “You will need to concentrate, but don’t put all of your energy into it. If you overdo it, you can rip a hole like last time, and that is not something we can afford. All right, just like I taught you.” Cyrus took a deep breath and lightly brushed the tips of his fingers against the plastic ball and closed his eyes. Silenced surrounded the both of them. Then Cyrus opened his eyes and they were completely white; his hair began to rise at the ends.

Harrison was always impressed by watching Cyrus work. As a Virtue of Space, Cyrus was able to see where specific times were and specific things therein. As he put it, it was like being able to see each individual strand of a tapestry, unable to alter it, just observe and note the material and design. This is why Virtues of Space were so important to have whenever traveling. Aspects of Time like Harrison could travel to whenever, but they couldn’t accurately place themselves in specific time periods. This is why Harrison ended up in the late Cretaceous period and almost ended up meeting a Hypsibema missouriensis, also known as the Missouri state dinosaur. Harrison returned his focus to the task at hand. “Try to send it back, Harrison.”

Harrison looked at the red ball and narrowed his eyes at it, singularly concentrated on sending the ball back. _Alright little ball, I’m gonna need you to go on a little trip for me, okay? I need you to go to any year before this one. Preferably sometime interesting, but that’s not a requirement. And if you could do that now, that would be great too._ He thought at the ball for a few minutes, feeling silly since nothing seemed to be happening for him. He even wiggled his eyebrows at the ball in the hopes his magic was stored in his forehead but to no avail. Cyrus sighed. “Do you feel anything yet?” Harrison could feel his face flush with embarrassment. No, he thought to himself. “Yes,” he said aloud.

“Did you know liars used to have their tongues cut out and displayed to keep others from wanting to do so?” Cyrus’s voice didn’t change, just casually noted this interesting historical fact. Harrison was fairly certain Cyrus wouldn’t cut his tongue out, but not certain enough to rule that out entirely.

“You need to focus, idiot, or this is never going to work.” Harrison decided to close his eyes and try another approach. Picture a mailbox in your head. Harrison conjured up an image of a bright red birdhouse-turned-mailbox, hand painted and weathered with time on an endless field of trimmed grass. He imagined holding the red ball and putting it in the mailbox, even flipping the flag on the side up to signal it was ready to be taken. Then Harrison felt his fingers begin to heat up and couldn’t help the proud grin that stretched across his face as he opened his eyes and saw the air around the ball shimmer and distort with energy. He quickly shut them so he wouldn’t lose his concentration and imagined the mailbox shimmering the same way the ball did. He imagined it begins to shake and he could feel the heat coming from the mailbox as it begins to turn transparent. Then Harrison blinked, and the mailbox was gone, leaving a hole in the ground where it once stood.

He opened his eyes, saw his hands were empty and felt his mouth drop open in amazement. Cyrus simply snorted and continued to hold his hands out in front of him. “Don’t get too excited. You still have to bring it back when I find….” He paused, frowned, and raised his face to look at Harrison, which was a bit uncomfortable since the pupil of his eyes were still missing. “I can’t find the ball. Did you destroy it?” Cyrus sounded frustrated, and Harrison could see why. He was supposed to be an expert at this sort of thing.

“I’m not even that good at sending things back, so how could I destroy it?”

“Well, I don’t know where it is. For some reason, I can only pick up a mailbox…. ”

Harrison thought to himself for a moment. I really made it? I thought it was just in my head! I am freaking awesome…. “I think I know why.” Harrison explained his method to Cyrus who seemed to be getting angrier by the second.

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that you have never known about any of these abilities before the dinosaur incident? Because I don’t understand how you are an Aspect of Space with an innate flair for Omnificence. Most Aspects can’t ever attain that ability, no matter how long they train, and for those that do, they train for decades to be able to do what you just did. It simply isn’t possible, which only leaves one option left, and it’s that you are a liar.”

Cyrus stood and was menacingly walking towards Harrison while he spoke. His eyes were still completely blank and made him look even more dangerous. “Are you working for the Federation? Because you picked the wrong person to spy on…” The air around him seemed to crackle with energy and Harrison was nervously looking around for a weapon of some sort.

“Listen, Cyrus, I really don’t know how I did anything. I’m just as confused as you are! Don’t you think you are overreacting? Can’t we talk about this? I mean, what if I’m just rare! I never knew my parents, you know, so who knows who they were so maybe they gave me all these awesome powers and maybe you could stop walking towards me because you are really freaking me out!” Harrison was babbling, words waterfalling from his mouth in a desperate attempt to get Cyrus to calm down, and he still hadn’t managed to pick a weapon so he was defenseless against this man. Harrison was against the bookshelf at this point, literally with his back against a wall.

Cyrus stopped in front of him, and Harrison thought he could see the waves of anger coming off of Cyrus’s body. They stood that way for a long moment before Cyrus sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were the normal icy blue they were supposed to be. “We need to see a friend of mine that can examine you. In the meantime, you had better get comfortable because you aren’t leaving the house. Do you understand?”

Harrison didn’t care, he was just glad he was still alive. “There are turkey sandwiches in the fridge. I am going to sort out the meeting, so you need to make yourself scarce; however, if you leave this house, I will personally capture and hog tie you. Do you understand?”

“But Cyrus…”

“But what?” he snapped and looked at Harrison, whose shoulders were slumped over with sadness.

“I hate turkey.”


End file.
